upgrading my gaming rig, what parts can i reuse, and seeking recommendations for what to buy.

[Gazz292]

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is the one i'm leaning towards now.

i know i've jumped from a £220 Ryzen 5 7500X3D into the £350+ cpu price bracket, but there the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is still a Zen 4 model like the 5 7500 is.
So i'd need to go up to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D to get into the newer Zen 5 model territory, and that's got a £395 price tag.

And then of course i start thinking it's 'only' another £40 for the 7 9850X3D, and that gets a cpu that was released a month or so ago, Vs one released over a year ago, perhaps helping one of my goals of building a pc that will last me 5 to 10 years Vs having to think about upgrading in 3 or 4 years.

So that gets me up to a 5.6Ghz 'turbo' clock speed, which i presume is a good thing for these simulator games that utilize a single core so much,
the 96MB L3 cache is the same across all the models of CPU i've been looking at, it's need a jump to a ryzen 9 to get a 128MB L3 cache, but i have to draw the line somewhere, and i've read that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has only 8 cores that can access this X3D thing, so the other 8 would do nothing for me and may even slow things down.

:

So my original budget of £300 is totally blown on just the CPU, and i still need to get a main board and a cooler, and as i'm thinking an AIO is better for cooling this kind of CPU, that'll very likely mean a new case is needed now rather than later.

Any special plugs needed on the PSU to run the AIO's water pump and fans? or does it get power off the motherboard?
as if i can put off getting a new psu at the same time as this lot, it'll make this a lot more possible,

 

[Tetras]

So that gets me up to a 5.6Ghz 'turbo' clock speed, which i presume is a good thing for these simulator games that utilize a single core so much,
the 96MB L3 cache is the same across all the models of CPU i've been looking at, it's need a jump to a ryzen 9 to get a 128MB L3 cache, but i have to draw the line somewhere, and i've read that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has only 8 cores that can access this X3D thing, so the other 8 would do nothing for me and may even slow things down.

Yeah, the 9950X3D is not a CPU I'd consider for your usage. They're really meant for those that want a top gaming CPU, alongside a workstation CPU, to do very CPU-heavy tasks that benefit from the 16 cores.

I can understand your reason for getting the 9850X3D, that you want the highest single core/thread performance, but my opinion is that in the longer-term the differences between (a particular generation of) CPUs actually shrink, rather than the higher-end CPUs standing out.

The higher-end CPUs stand out now, right now, because low res benchmarks with a 5090 will exaggerate those differences, but in 10 years, the 9850X3D won't stand out at all from the 9800X3D and it will barely stand out from the 7800X3D.

In terms of Zen 5 being a benefit, there are some games that benefit a lot, but it isn't something I'd be desperate to have overall:

Any special plugs needed on the PSU to run the AIO's water pump and fans? or does it get power off the motherboard?

No, there's nothing new for the PSU.

As a contrast to the high-end PC, I still think this would be very capable.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core Ultra 5 245K (Arrow Lake) Socket LGA 1851 Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-INT-03113) = £149.99
• 1 x Gigabyte Z890 UD WIFI6E (LGA1851) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-GIG-03488) = £175.99
• 1 x KLEVV FIT V 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MHz C30 DDR5 Dual Channel Kit - Black (SKU: MEM-KLV-07036) = £289.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5060 Ti Twin Edge 16GB GDDR7 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-04916) = £407.99
• 1 x Team Group Z44A7 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-TMG-02624) = £199.99
• 1 x Kolink Stronghold Barricade Midi Tower Case - Gunmetal Grey (SKU: CA-06J-KK) = £34.99
• 1 x Phanteks AMP GH 750W ATX 3.1 PCIe 5.1 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: POW-PHK-02517) = £84.95
• 1 x Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE Dual Tower CPU Cooler - 120mm (SKU: COO-TLR-02723) = £36.95

Total: £1,380.84 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Eight Core 5.20GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail (SKU: PRO-AMD-03517) = £394.99
• 1 x AMD Game Bundle - Crimson Desert (SKU: DIG-AMD-07311) = £0.00
• 1 x Gigabyte B850 Aorus Elite WIFI7 (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MOT-GIG-03856) = £189.95
• 1 x Crucial Pro 48GB (2x24GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C46 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (SKU: MEM-CRU-01086) = £389.99
• 1 x Zotac GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Solid SFF OC 16GB GDDR7 Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-ZTC-04899) = £758.99
• 1 x NVIDIA Game Bundle - Resident Evil: Requiem (SKU: DIG-NVI-07316) = £0.00
• 1 x Crucial T710 2TB NVMe PCIe 5.0 M.2 Solid State Drive with Heatsink (SKU: STO-CRU-05420) = £262.99
• 1 x Lian Li Lancool 216 Mid-tower PC case - Black (SKU: CA-7BG-LL) = £84.95
• 1 x MSI MPG A850G ATX 3.1 PCIe 5.1 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply (SKU: CA-00Y-MS) = £99.94
• 1 x EK Water Blocks EK-Nucleus AIO CR360 Dark All In One CPU Cooler - 360mm (SKU: HS-016-EK) = £80.00

Total: £2,273.78 (includes delivery: £11.98)​

 

[Gazz292]

Thankyou, you've confirmed that a 9 series cpu is unsuitable for me, so it'll be one of the 7 series cpus i go for.

I'm almost decided on getting the Ryzen 7 9800X3D or 9850X3D, i kind of want to get the newest model possible for longevity hence considering the 9850, but i guess in reality it's not a 'new' cpu model, it's a 15 month old cpu that's been tweaked (binned?) a little at the factory and offered for sale in 2026 for £40 more, so would i really notice that 400Mhz extra clock speed.

:

And then that intrusive voice in my head says 'the zen 6 cpu's will be released in a years time, imagine how much faster they will be, just get a £220 ryzen 5 7500X3D for now, that should outperform the i7-12700H in the laptop, and you'll see a really big improvement when you change from a zen 4 to a zen 6 processor'

I guess at least that is a possibility due to the cpu's using the same socket, but just as i thought i had chosen the cpu and can start concentrating on the motherboard, i overthink things again.

:

i've also just found out that i may be able to reuse my existing noctua cpu cooler, it's currently on an i7 920 from ~2010, and that thing ran at over 200 watts when running at 4.5Ghz.
Noctua sell adaptor kits to make their coolers fit newer cpu's, as well as offset mounts to account for the AMD's hotspot position being different to intels.

So i could possibly save a chunk of money there and not need to get a new cpu cooler right now, the money saved here could be put towards getting a half decent psu at the same time as i buy the cpu and motherboard, i'd have to get a psu with enough power to run the gfx card i choose later (which will be at least a 16GB Vram model, ideally a 24GB one as people have reported that simrail will already use 16 gigs of Vram if it can today, and as time goes on i can only imagine it will use more as new content is released that adds to the base game)


Then i could consider an AIO cooler when i do the 2nd part of the build, which is when i will buy the gfx card, new case to take an AIO radiator, faster ram, bigger ssd etc.

 

[Tetras]

I'm almost decided on getting the Ryzen 7 9800X3D or 9850X3D, i kind of want to get the newest model possible for longevity hence considering the 9850, but i guess in reality it's not a 'new' cpu model, it's a 15 month old cpu that's been tweaked (binned?) a little at the factory and offered for sale in 2026 for £40 more, so would i really notice that 400Mhz extra clock speed.

Yeah, it is not a new model. It is more like a mid-gen refresh.

FYI: in TPU's review, that 400 Mhz is only realised (against the 9800X3D) with lightly threaded stuff. It drops (right down to 200 Mhz) as the CPU gets more loaded.

If you care about efficiency, the 9850X3D is much less efficient than the 9800X3D when lightly threaded and when gaming (the 7800X3D is also more efficient than the 9800X3D).

And then that intrusive voice in my head says 'the zen 6 cpu's will be released in a years time, imagine how much faster they will be, just get a £220 ryzen 5 7500X3D for now, that should outperform the i7-12700H in the laptop, and you'll see a really big improvement when you change from a zen 4 to a zen 6 processor'

I guess at least that is a possibility due to the cpu's using the same socket, but just as i thought i had chosen the cpu and can start concentrating on the motherboard, i overthink things again.

The major change I'm aware of is that Zen 6 is moving to 12 cores per CCD (from 8), so that will be a nice benefit for the 10800X3D (if it works out that way). I don't know how much faster they will be, or if Zen 6 will be the last CPU on AM5.

With what you've described about the apps/games you use, I'd have no concern buying the 7500X3D (or even a 245K, for that matter). PassMark has the 12700H as almost identical performance to the 7500X3D, but I'd expect gaming performance to be significantly higher when the 3D cache is utilised well.

i've also just found out that i may be able to reuse my existing noctua cpu cooler, it's currently on an i7 920 from ~2010, and that thing ran at over 200 watts when running at 4.5Ghz.
Noctua sell adaptor kits to make their coolers fit newer cpu's, as well as offset mounts to account for the AMD's hotspot position being different to intels.

So i could possibly save a chunk of money there and not need to get a new cpu cooler right now, the money saved here could be put towards getting a half decent psu at the same time as i buy the cpu and motherboard, i'd have to get a psu with enough power to run the gfx card i choose later (which will be at least a 16GB Vram model, ideally a 24GB one as people have reported that simrail will already use 16 gigs of Vram if it can today, and as time goes on i can only imagine it will use more as new content is released that adds to the base game)

If you can get a kit, why not? Those old Noctua coolers should not struggle with the Ryzen, though note that they're hot running CPUs compared to most old Intel CPUs, which is not due to their power usage.

Getting 24GB of VRAM could be a problem. Nvidia were going to use higher density VRAM to put 18GB on a 5070 and 24 GB on the 5070 Ti/5080, but unfortunately (with the RAM crunch) those look to have been cancelled or postponed to who knows when.

I don't know what kind of game that is and if it is modded a lot, but maybe they will release a more compressed texture pack? There are often diminishing (visual) returns as the textures get bigger (in terms of performance versus the visual improvement) and optimising their game for 24GB would really make no sense when many gamers still don't have 8GB cards, let alone 16GB+.

 

[DotA]

Save the money and get the slower CPU, it still beat most other CPUs out there. I am aming for the refreash or if the rumors are true that zen 7 will be on AM5 il get that one.

 

[Gazz292]

i couldn't have chosen a worse time to decide to build a new gaming pc really, so it may well end up that the purchase of the gfx card, proper memory and a larger ssd will be postponed for a lot longer than i hoped if the prices don't go back near sensible levels this year,

:

The simrail game is pretty much a port of a driver training simulator that big railway companies order custom built for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the company that makes it gets permission to re-use the digital content in their 'side project' where they get it working on unity and sell it to us home users as a 'game',
and it's a dev team of less than 10 doing this.

So they take something where optimization is not needed at all, as the driver training simulator comes with a replica of a train cab to drive the thing from that's connected to a computer(s) they supply that can more than handle running the simulator and the trainers desk (to put faults on the drivers desk and see how they respond)

So it's the kind of game where people with the best home pc gear you can buy struggle to get more than 40 fps at some points on the route, and my gaming laptop can drop to 8fps at some points if there's lots of 'Ai' and other players trains in a big station,

 

[Tetras]

The simrail game is pretty much a port of a driver training simulator that big railway companies order custom built for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the company that makes it gets permission to re-use the digital content in their 'side project' where they get it working on unity and sell it to us home users as a 'game',
and it's a dev team of less than 10 doing this.

So they take something where optimization is not needed at all, as the driver training simulator comes with a replica of a train cab to drive the thing from that's connected to a computer(s) they supply that can more than handle running the simulator and the trainers desk (to put faults on the drivers desk and see how they respond)

So it's the kind of game where people with the best home pc gear you can buy struggle to get more than 40 fps at some points on the route, and my gaming laptop can drop to 8fps at some points if there's lots of 'Ai' and other players trains in a big station,

To be honest, I don't think I'd bother buying stuff specifically for this type of game, it ends up like a dog chasing its own tail. You can never quite get there and sink £1000s trying to reach it.

Unless it is the main reason you're upgrading, then I guess maybe the expense can be justified.

 

[Gazz292]

yeah, the pc i'm building will be just to run my home simulator rigs (real bus, truck and train parts... like dashboards, gauges, indicator panels, screens, steering wheel pedals and gear shifter, or driving control levers and brake levers etc, all connected to the computer)

So all it will ever really do is run these simulators,

I'm trying to find out the spec of the pc the train sim company uses for their professional simulators, but i can imagine it will be be something that would cost tens of thousands to recreate with consumer parts, so i'm trying to get the best i can using regular consumer parts and a much cheaper budget (i expect to spend 2 to 3 grand in total for this pc build, just not all at once, with the graphics card taking up the biggest chunk of that money)

 

[Tetras]

yeah, the pc i'm building will be just to run my home simulator rigs (real bus, truck and train parts... like dashboards, gauges, indicator panels, screens, steering wheel pedals and gear shifter, or driving control levers and brake levers etc, all connected to the computer)

So all it will ever really do is run these simulators,

I'm trying to find out the spec of the pc the train sim company uses for their professional simulators, but i can imagine it will be be something that would cost tens of thousands to recreate with consumer parts, so i'm trying to get the best i can using regular consumer parts and a much cheaper budget (i expect to spend 2 to 3 grand in total for this pc build, just not all at once, with the graphics card taking up the biggest chunk of that money)

It is your call what's worth it to you, but personally I'd build something like the £1400 i5-245K / 5060 Ti 16GB PC, which would work great in the majority of games and then park this game in my Steam library until either hardware vastly outpaces the requirements, or they optimise it better for regular consumer hardware.

Would be interested to know what kind of hardware they use, though if the slow downs are mainly with an excess of trains in a station, maybe the game itself just isn't designed for that event. In MMOs, for example, where you're supposed to have a lot of players condensed in one area, the engine will often lower the details of the models/particle effects dynamically.